Pike was an imposing figure; six feet tall and 300 pounds with hair that reached his shoulders and a long beard.[4][5] In 1831, he left Massachusetts to travel west, first stopping in Nashville, Tennessee and later moving to St. Louis, Missouri.

There he joined an expedition to Taos, New Mexico, devoted to hunting and trading.[1] During the excursion his horse broke and ran, forcing Pike to walk the remaining 500 miles to Taos. After this he joined a trapping expedition to the Llano Estacado in New Mexico and Texas. Trapping was minimal and, after traveling about 1,300 miles (650 on foot), he finally arrived at Fort Smith, Arkansas.[5]

Settling in Arkansas in 1833, Pike taught in a school and wrote a series of articles for the Little RockArkansas Advocate under the pen name of "Casca."[6] The articles were popular enough that he was asked to join the newspaper's staff. Under Pike's administration the Advocate promoted the viewpoint of the Whig Party in a politically volatile and divided Arkansas in December 1832.[6] After marrying Mary Ann Hamilton in 1834, he purchased the newspaper.[7]

He was the first reporter for the Arkansas Supreme Court. He wrote a book (published anonymously), titled The Arkansas Form Book, which was a guidebook for lawyers[8]. Pike began to study law and was admitted to the bar in 1837, selling the Advocate the same year.

He also made several contacts among the Native American tribes in the area. He specialized in claims on behalf of Native Americans against the federal government.[4] In 1852 he represented Creek Nation before the Supreme Court in a claim regarding ceded tribal land. In 1854 he advocated for the Choctaw and Chickasaw, although compensation later awarded to the tribes in 1856 and 1857 was insufficient.[7] These relationships were to influence the course of his Civil War service.

Additionally, Pike wrote on several legal subjects. He also continued writing poetry, a hobby he had begun in his youth in Massachusetts. His poems were highly regarded in his day, but are now mostly forgotten. Several volumes of his works were privately published posthumously by his daughter. In 1859, he received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Harvard.[9]

When the Mexican–American War started, Pike joined the Regiment of Arkansas Mounted Volunteers (a cavalry regiment) and was commissioned as a troop commander with the rank of captain in June 1846. With his regiment, he fought in the Battle of Buena Vista. Pike was discharged in June 1847. He and his commander, Colonel John Selden Roane, had several differences of opinion. This situation led finally to an "inconclusive" duel between Pike and Roane on July 29, 1847, near Fort Smith, Arkansas.[10] Although several shots were fired in the duel, nobody was injured, and the two were persuaded by their seconds to discontinue it.[11]

After the war, Pike returned to the practice of law, moving to New Orleans for a time beginning in 1853.[citation needed] He wrote another book, Maxims of the Roman Law and Some of the Ancient French Law, as Expounded and Applied in Doctrine and Jurisprudence.[12] Although unpublished, this book increased his reputation among his associates in law. He returned to Arkansas in 1857, gaining some amount of prominence in the legal field.

At the Southern Commercial Convention of 1854, Pike said the South should remain in the Union and seek equality with the North, but if the South "were forced into an inferior status, she would be better out of the Union than in it."[13] His stand was that state's rights superseded national law and he supported the idea of a Southern secession. This stand is made clear in his pamphlet of 1861, "State or Province, Bond or Free?"[6]

In 1861, Pike penned the lyrics to "Dixie to Arms!"[14] At the beginning of the war, Pike was appointed as Confederate envoy to the Native Americans. In this capacity he negotiated several treaties, one of the most important being with Cherokee chief John Ross, which was concluded in 1861. At the time, Ross agreed to support the Confederacy, which promised the tribes a Native American state if it won the war. Ross later changed his mind and left Indian Territory, but the succeeding Cherokee government maintained the alliance.[4]

Pike was commissioned as a brigadier general on November 22, 1861, and given a command in the Indian Territory. With Gen. Ben McCulloch, Pike trained three Confederate regiments of Indian cavalry, most of whom belonged to the "civilized tribes", whose loyalty to the Confederacy was variable. Although initially victorious at the Battle of Pea Ridge (Elkhorn Tavern) in March 1862,[1] Pike's unit was defeated later in a counterattack, after falling into disarray. When Pike was ordered in May 1862 to send troops to Arkansas, he resigned in protest.[7] As in the previous war, Pike came into conflict with his superior officers, at one time drafting a letter to Jefferson Davis complaining about his direct superior.[15]

After Pea Ridge, Pike was faced with charges that his Native American troops had scalped soldiers in the field.[16] Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman also charged Pike with mishandling of money and material, ordering his arrest.[17] Both these charges were later found to be considerably lacking in evidence; nevertheless Pike, facing arrest, escaped into the hills of Arkansas, sending his resignation from the Confederate States Army on July 12.[17] He was at length arrested on November 3 under charges of insubordination and treason, and held briefly in Warren, Texas. His resignation was accepted on November 11, and he was allowed to return to Arkansas.[17]

Pike died in Washington, D.C., at the age of 81, and was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery. Burial was against his wishes; he had left instructions for his body to be cremated.[22] In 1944, his remains were moved to the House of the Temple, headquarters of the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite. A memorial to Pike is located in the Judiciary Square neighborhood of Washington, D.C. He is the only Confederate military officer with an outdoor statue in Washington, D.C.[23]

As a young man of letters, Pike wrote poetry, and he continued to do so for the rest of his life. At 23, he published his first poem, "Hymns to the Gods." Later work was printed in literary journals such as Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine and local newspapers. His first collection of poetry, Prose Sketches and Poems Written in the Western Country, was published in 1834.[5] He later gathered many of his poems and republished them in Hymns to the Gods and Other Poems (1872). After his death these were published again in Gen. Albert Pike's Poems (1900) and Lyrics and Love Songs (1916).[6]

The authorship of "The Old Canoe" was attributed to Pike. He was suggested as author because about the time of its publication, when it was going the rounds of the press, probably without any credit, a doggerel called "The Old Canoe" was composed about Pike by one of his political foes. The subject was a canoe in which he left Columbia, Tennessee, when a young man practicing law in that place. Pike told Senator Edward W. Carmack that he was not the author of "The Old Canoe," and could not imagine how he ever got the credit for it. The rightful author was Emily Rebecca Page.[26]